1 NEW CASE OF LOCALLY TRANSMITTED COVID-19 INFECTION

       As of 17 February 2021, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified that there is 1 new case of locally transmitted COVID-19 infection. The case is in the community, and there are no new cases in the dormitories. There are 10 imported cases, who had already been placed on Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore. Amongst the new cases today, 9 are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance, while 2 were symptomatic.  

Summary of new cases

2.     Overall, the number of new cases in the community has increased from 4 cases in the week before to 6 cases in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has decreased from 4 cases in the week before to 3 cases in the past week. We will continue to closely monitor these numbers, as well as the cases detected through our surveillance programme.

3.     Amongst the 74 confirmed cases reported from 11 February to 17 February, 37 cases have tested positive for their serology tests, 19 have tested negative, and 18 serology test results are pending.

Case Details

a) Cases in the community: 1

There is 1 case in the community today who is currently unlinked. 

Case 60277 is a 59 year-old female Singaporean who works at Aibel Pte Ltd in an administrative role, and has been working from home since March 2020.

She developed an itchy throat on 4 February and sought medical treatment at a general practitioner clinic. She was placed on 5 days of medical leave, and told to return for a follow-up consultation and COVID-19 test if she had not recovered after 3 days. She informed her doctor on 6 February that she had recovered. On 15 February, she developed fever, chills, nausea and epigastric pain, and sought treatment at Sengkang General Hospital, where she was tested for COVID-19, and isolated. Her test result come back positive for COVID-19 infection the next day. Her serology test result has come back negative, indicating that this is likely a current infection.

Epidemiological investigations are ongoing. In the meantime, all the identified close contacts of the case, including her family members, have been isolated and placed on quarantine, and will be tested at the start and end of their quarantine period so that we can detect asymptomatic cases. We will also conduct serological tests for the close contacts to determine if the case could have been infected by them. 

b) Cases residing in dormitories: 0

There are no cases residing in dormitories today. 

c) Imported cases: 10

Amongst the 10 imported cases, 

- 1 (Case 60276) is a Work Pass holder who arrived from India. 
- 8 are Work Permit holders who arrived from Indonesia and Malaysia, of whom 7 (Cases 60281, 60282, 60283, 60284, 60285, 60286 and 60287) are foreign domestic workers.
- 1 (Case 60280) is a Short-Term Visit Pass holder who arrived from India for studies in Singapore.

Of these, 7 arrived in Singapore before the requirement for mandatory on-arrival serology tests commenced, and 3 are not required to undergo these tests upon arrival¹.

They had all already been placed on SHN upon arrival in Singapore and were tested while serving SHN. 

4.     Please refer to the Annexes  and MOH’s daily Situation Report (www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19/situation-report) for details. 

5.     MOH has been monitoring existing clusters for any further transmission. As there have been no more cases linked to the Case 59343 cluster for the past two incubation periods (i.e. 28 days), the cluster has now been closed.

Update on condition of confirmed cases

6.     15 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 59,676 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities. 

7.     There are currently 25 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and 1 is in critical condition in the intensive care unit. 91 are isolated and cared for at community facilities. These are those who have mild symptoms, or are clinically well but still test positive for COVID-19. 29 have passed away from complications due to COVID-19 infection. 

MINISTRY OF HEALTH
17 FEBRUARY 2021
 

¹ From 5 February, newly arrived Work Permit and S Pass holders in the Construction, Marine and Process sectors, foreign domestic workers and confinement nannies, who have recent travel history to higher-risk countries/ regions, are required to undergo mandatory on-arrival serology tests, in addition to PCR tests.